Data Management -> Delete Records - Going extrememly slow

We did a .csv import of a list full of 20,000 contacts. However, after the import we saw that most contacts were improperly imported due to the format someone with our company made the import file. I manually re-edited this list of contacts and prepped it in .DBF format. Now i need to delete this improper contacts from our database. I built a group of all the contacts I need to remove and started the "Delete Records" tool last night. After 16 hours of running, the tool has only deleted 3,000 records. This cannot be normal, what could be causing this? I am only selecting the below options when clicking "delete".

You should be on at least 8.5.2.9. Why did you not select "delete all contacts"? Hopefully you backed up your database before deleting. We need more information: How many contacts in your GM, how much memory does your system have. I would also take a look at the Task Manager to see how many processes are taking place and how much memory is available.

I did choose "delete all contacts" and we cannot update our platform because we no longer have a support contract with frontrange. About 75,00 contacts total in our database. I'll check MEMORY now and post shortly. There should be close to know tasks running, as everyone is logged out and we restarted the server before the delete. Post back soon.

Kind of sounds like the database is doing full table scans of everything. Did you happen to delete some indexes? Might be worth it to stop the delete, reindex everything and start again. 75,000 records is not a lot, with 20,000 recently imported.

Have you anything like triggers firing on delete running on any of the tables in the database database?

Are you running the delete on the server or on a workstation? If on a workstation does it run any faster when run directly on the server? How is the workstation connected to the network; wired or wireless? If wired what speed is the network? Do you notice any other speed issues with GoldMine; any intermittent locking up or anything like that?

Theres a lot of things that can cause this, and if none of the suggestions posted so far resolve the issue then it might be worth getting someone to take a look at your system. 16 minutes would be too long to delete 20000 newly imported contacts, let alone 16 hours.

@Ronan Nothing is firing that we would have added, only GM default.Was running on a workstation. Connected to a Gigabit network infrastructure via "wire". We have quite a few intermittent lock ups and hiccups all the time. And I was able to speed-up the delete by "un-checking" the 4 options it provides you with before deleting the contacts. Took roughly an hour for 10k contacts to delete, so definitely an improvement.

We are obviously experiencing issues with our goldmine setup, and unfortunately the company is not interested in bringing in someone to look at it. So I will keep tinkering slowly and hopefully get suggestions from you guys as I go. Thanks everyone, you really have been of great assistance!

As a side note, we ran a SQL Profiler Tracer and at only 25% done it already stated that it was going to be able to make performance improvements.

Stability is so poor with our server that when just browsing pre-saved "groups" of users causes severe lock-ups. Like when switching from "my users" groups to "jackie's" groups, the entire program stops responding for about 30 seconds. I'll let you know what the tracer results are upon completion.

It definately sounds like you have some issues with the network that need to be resolved.

One quick thing you can try on the workstation which might improve things is click Start >> Run and run cliconfg. Ensure that both Named Pipes and TCP/IP are enabled and that Named Pipes is top of the list. Restart if necessary. This might improve the connection somewhat.

You see, I was sure we had network issues here as we have problems with PHP Live Chat disconnecting all the time. And this morning I was getting "disconnect" errors from the GoldMine server. But our IT department swears nothing is wrong with our network, lol. I'll check out the cliconfig and let you know what I find out.

you have to understand that there are, indeed, some things within GoldMine that will be slow -- like looking at a contact group that has 5000 members with sync-contact on and then clicking another contact group with 3000 members. That will result in a bit of a pause on even the most well tuned system.

Deleting records, by it's very nature, is slow. Make sure that you have Sync Contact turned off, and remember that you are deleting all Calendar, History, etc along with that record so you should expect a performance hit.

With respect to cliconfg - not totally sure if it is relevant or helpful in all scenarios any more. For one thing, if you have a 64-bit OS, there are actually two versions of it. One is in Windows\System32, the other is in Windows\SysWOW64 - that's the one more likely to be relevant if you are running 64-bit OS, but the the one in System32 is still the one that comes up if you enter cliconfg in the 'Search programs and files' or 'Run' box.

Second thing is, on my system if I run either version, it tells me I have no protocols enabled, and that both Named Pipes and TCP/IP are listed as disabled...yet everything works. Might have to do with the SQL driver in use on a particular system. Not sure if it has any effect if the system is using SQL Native Client drivers.

Deleting a group of newly created contacts, even if it is 20,000, should not take anywhere near the time you were seeing. Have you tried running it from the server? That would be a general recommendation anyway, along with DJ's comment about turning off Sync Contact. I would also close down any other tabs you had open (including Filters and Groups) before starting the delete. The only tab (or window, if you prefer the windowed mode) should be the contact tab. If in such a case it's still slow directly on the server, you'd have to look at horsepower, but also things like disk space/fragmentation, I/O latency, all sorts of things.